- What Is The Gift Of The Holy Spirit?
- What Is The Gift Of The Holy Spirit?
- What Does The Holy Spirit Do In The Life Of The Christian Today?
- Gifts From The Holy Spirit
- Baptism And The Holy Spirit
- The Work Of The Holy Spirit In The Life Of The Christian (An Outline)
- Responses To The Holy Spirit – An Outline
The Holy Spirit is a gift to all who give their life to Jesus (Acts 2:37-39). Most believers accept this as a fact, even though they may not understand the implications of it. A segue question comes to mind about the gifts provided by the Holy Spirit. Are the gifts given by the Spirit for Christians today? Which ones? Are these connected to being more or less blessed and accepted?
As we begin this brief study, let me say that scriptures teach when one is saved, he is all the way saved, accepted by the Father as one washed in the blood of Jesus. The Spirit who indwells the Christian works in the Christian to help him/her grow continually through life, in His grace.
Gifts from the Spirit are different from the gift of the Spirit. All Christians receive the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9), and Christians receive gifts from the Spirit, but not all Christians receive the same gifts (I Corinthians 12:4-10). The body of Christ, illustrated by Paul with the human body, has different parts, performing different duties and thus the ‘body of Christ’ (the church) does what it is supposed to do in the world, with the help of the Spirit.
Now since I am not going to be able to cover everything in this article… and since I don’t know it all, you will need to read carefully I Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. These Christians had a major problem of jealousy and lack of love for each other. Thus chapter 13 is critical to all of this. Brethren were jealous, because some Christians had the gift of tongues (the ability to speak a different language not normally learned (Acts 2:1-12), and others did not. They may have had a gift like ‘mercy’ or ‘giving’ or ‘leading’ or some other gift (Romans 12:4-8). The ones with the gift of ‘tongues’ looked down on the one without this gift, this is evident when reading I Corinthians 14. Paul writes to correct their attitudes towards each other. Every gift was important to the ‘body’. No one was to be considered ‘of less importance’ than others, (Romans 12:3), even though some gifts were more important (I Corinthians 14:5). Certainly putting one another down, was not right.
As far as ‘tongues’ was concerned, Paul deals with this more in I Corinthians 14, where he says that prophecy (which edified the whole congregation), was actually to be desired more than ‘tongues’, since it didn’t involve speaking a language unknown to the rest (I Corinthians 14:3-5). Prophesying was simply speaking a word from God for the instruction, encouragement, and edification of the whole group. The practice of everyone speaking at the same time in some ‘unknown tongue’, was actually FORBIDDEN by the apostle (I Corinthians 14:23).
They were to follow these instructions… two or at the most three with the gift of tongues were allowed to speak at the assembly (obviously with an interpreter)
(I Corinthians 14:27).
Those that prophesied, they were to do so in a decent and orderly fashion,
(I Corinthians 14:33).
Does the Holy Spirit still give gifts today? The “signs and wonders” done to prove that those who spoke were authentic apostles are recorded for us in scriptures. Gifts from the Spirit, some are not with us, some are. God still works, answers prayer, heals, guides, ‘opens opportunities’… Other things were mentioned in a previous article.
No I am not trying to limit God. however, I do not want to teach something which goes beyond what He has revealed in scriptures either.